Derivs - Credit

A mismatch between cash and CDS prices for high-yield debt is drawing investors to negative basis trades.

The fall of the U.S. dollar has investors eyeing collateralized debt obligations referencing non-dollar bonds.

Former RBS Greenwich Capital Markets collateralized debt obligation co-head Rick Caplan has entered a start-up endeavor named Caprok Capital.

Heikki Monkkonen, European head of credit structuring at Barclays Capital in London, and Andrew Whittle, head of European credit trading, have left the firm.

Unless the CMBX derivative index starts to offer information about daily trading volumes, portfolio managers believe more insurance companies will move away from commercial mortgage-backed securities.

Domestic turnover of over-the-counter derivatives trades in South Korea ballooned in 2007, according to Financial Supervisory Service figures obtained by DW.

A flurry of credit derivative novations, or the reassignment of trades to a third counterparty, surrounded Bear Stearns in the run up to its takeover by JPMorgan.

A major credit-default swap user is raising red flags over the instruments, saying they have shifted from being used to offset risk to a tool that encourages significant risk taking.

HSBC is prepping to launch structured investments linked to its new emerging market stock index.

The recent downgrade of about 60 corporate CDOs has some calling for a revamp of the ratings process for synthetics to include more market-value measures.

Dealer firms are tweaking their off-strike pricing methods for unwinding credit-default swaps that are deeply in-the-money for clients.

Structured credit salesmen are working to pair up investors with asset managers to manage corporate synthetic collateralized debt obligations that are currently static.